After reading about the standing ovation House Leader Boehner got from the GOP Reps there was plenty of comment about why the GOP would be so excited over another government shutdown. So after exploring I did find the Washington Post did a sort of fact checker for the last government shutdown.
So the question remained, when someone says government shutdown what does shut down?
Starting with this article I was surprised to find this bit of info:
The Ghost of Shutdowns Past
Since 1981, there have been five government shutdowns. Four of the last five government shutdowns went largely unnoticed by anybody but the federal employees affected. In the last one, however, the American people shared the pain.
* 1981: President Reagan vetoed a continuing resolution and 400,000 Federal employees were sent home at lunch and told not to come back. A few hours later, President Reagan signed a new version of the continuing resolution and the workers were back at work the next morning.
* 1984: With no approved budget, 500,000 federal workers were sent home. An emergency spending bill has them all back at work the next day.
* 1990: With no budget or continuing resolution, the government shuts down during the entire three-day Columbus Day weekend. Most workers were off anyway and an emergency spending bill signed by President Bush over the weekend has them back at work Tuesday morning.
* 1995-1996: Two government shutdowns beginning on November 14, 1995, idled different functions of the federal government for various lengths of time until April of 1996. The most serious government shutdowns in the nation's history resulted from a budget impasse between Democratic President Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress over funding for Medicare, education, the environment and public health.
Now I'm not a big fan of some things that former President Clinton did while in office (NAFTA) but I can tell you he is a smart man...
he first of the two government shutdowns in 1995-1996 lasted only six days, from November 14 to November 20. Following the six-day shutdown, the Clinton administration released an estimate of what the six days of an idled federal government had cost.
The exact dates were November 14-19, 1995.
What did those numbers show? That a 6 day shutdown of our government cost us $800 million. How were the people influenced through all of the 6 days:
Inconvenienced Citizens
* Medicare: Some 400,000 newly eligible Medicare recipients were delayed in applying for the program.
* Social Security: Claims from 112,000 new Social Security applicants were not processed. 212,000 new or replacement Social Security cards were not issued. 360,000 office visits were denied. 800,000 toll-free calls for information were not answered.
* Healthcare: New patients were not accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) clinical center. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ceased disease surveillance and hotline calls to NIH concerning diseases were not answered.
* Environment: Toxic waste clean-up work at 609 sites stopped as 2,400 Superfund workers were sent home.
* Law Enforcement and Public Safety: Delays occurred in the processing of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives applications by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; work on more than 3,500 bankruptcy cases reportedly was suspended; cancellation of the recruitment and testing of federal law enforcement officials reportedly occurred, including the hiring of 400 border patrol agents; and delinquent child-support cases were delayed.
* US Veterans: Multiple veterans' services were curtailed, ranging from health and welfare to finance and travel.
* Travel: 80,000 passport applications were delayed. 80,000 visas were delayed. The resulting postponement or cancellation of travel cost U.S. tourist industries and airlines millions of dollars.
* National Parks: 2 million visitors were turned away from the nation's national parks resulting in the loss of millions in revenue.
* Government-backed Loans: FHA mortgage loans worth more than $800 million to more than 10,000 low-and-moderate-income working families were delayed.
But that did not deter the Republicans. They had another government shutdown from Dec 16, 1995- January 8,1996. What was the cost of that mind boggling decision?
Shutting down the government should at least save money, right? Not necessarily. In fact, the 1995 shutdowns had serious economic ramifications. An OMB calculation in January 1996 estimated the cost of the 26 total days of shutdown at $1.4 billion in taxpayer money—although a good chunk of that came from back salaries paid to furloughed workers. But the National Park Service forwent more than $14 million per day in revenue, businesses and local governments near parks missed out on an estimated $295 million due to closures, and U.S. tourist industries and airlines lost “millions of dollars,” according to estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Not that the shutdown is bad for everyone’s business: Back in 1995, local Washington, D.C. pizza magnate Frank Meeks sold a record number of pies as Congressional staffers worked over time.
Keep in mind this is during a period of time where our economy was not to shabby. So when some Republican states that it might not be a bad thing maybe we should ask them "Not bad for who?" As it stands we have a lot more people who have retired due to this recession, we have two wars going on in Afghanistan and Iraq plus we now have given support in Libya. If you want to visit some of our beautiful national parks you might want to wait until the dust settles or else you might be sent back home. All government shutdowns do is make our government less efficient and like anyone else we have to catch up (overtime anyone).